Subject: <none>

From: [email-masked] (Xi Chen)
Date: 13 Sep 93 03:21:15 EDT

Chinese Chess Server has been up and down for several times. Your patience
might have worn out. I apologize for that.

I closed the server last week. The main reason is that math.harvard.edu is
not a legal site for me to set up the server. Secondly, I was sort of busy
last week and got no time to take care of the server. But subsequent
inquiries from users changed my mind. From now on, math.harvard.edu will be
used as a temporary home for ICCS until a permanent home is established.

A Swedish computer society has offered to host ICCS but it takes some time
to work out the details. Besides, I think it's better to host it in US.
If you are interested in hosting ICCS, please let me know.

A tentative FAQ is enclosed.

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Q. What is Internet Chinese Chess Server? How can I reach it?

A. Internet Chinese Chess Server is a xiangqi counterpart of ICS (Internet
Chess Server) and IGS (Internet Go Server). It is a place for people and
computers to play real-time Chinese Chess through Internet. The temporary
home is math.harvard.edu 5555 or 128.103.28.10 5555. If 'telnet' is
available on your system, use "telnet math.harvard.edu 5555" or "telnet
128.103.28.10 5555."

Q. I tried the address you mentioned, but I couldn't reach it. Why?

A. Since the server is still under development, it is down frequently,
sometimes because of existing bugs, sometimes because of net
problems, sometimes due to downs of the host machine. Usually I post
announcement of open and close in various news groups and inform those
people among my mailing list by e-mail (you are on my mailing list if you
ever sent me e-mail inquiring about the server). But since there is no such a
group called rec.games.cchess, I am afraid these messages cannot reach
everyone who is interested in this matter. So if you want to be notified of
the changes of ICCS, please send me an e-mail and I will add you to my
mailing list.

Q. How do I login? Should I register for an account?

A. If you are new to the server, you may create your account and password
at the prompt. Both account and password are limited to 15 characters long.
If you have already created an account, please use your old account. You
needn't register for an account. But please avoid using multiple accounts
to save disc space.

Q. How do I play games on the server?

A. If you are familiar with ICS and IGS, you won't have any difficulty with
ICCS since most commands are the same. While if you are totally new to
such an environment, you need to read some help files before starting. Use
"help intro" to see a set of most useful commands. To see the usage of a
particular command, use "help <that command>".

Q. I feel the interface of ICCS is rather awkward. Especially, the chess
board is hard to read. Is there any way to get a better interface?

A. Yes. What you need is clients. A client is a program running on your
machine which transports and translates the data received from the server.
Telnet can be regarded as a raw client which only does the transportation.
Matured servers such as ICS and IGS already have a lot of client programs
for different machines. But for ICCS, there is none at present. Things will
change in the future.